LAWYER QUOTES III
quotations about lawyers
People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.
WILL ROGERS
"Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes", The Illiterate Digest
Jury--Twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
LENORA OLIVER
Herald, 1938
The Post Office just recalled their newest stamps: They had a picture of lawyers on them ... and people couldn't figure out which side to spit on.
MARVIN LEBMAN
A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories
A lawyers performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.
MELVIN BELLI
attributed, Jar of Quotes
Lawyers are a bad lot.... They cheat their living out of honest people.
ALBERT R. CARMAN
Incurable!
A countryman between 2 Lawyers, is like a fish between two cats.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737
Anyone who believes a better day dawns when lawyers are eliminated has the burden of explaining who will take their place. Who will protect the poor, the injured, the victims of negligence, the victims of racial discrimination, and the victims of racial violence?... Lawyers are the simple yet essential means by which people seek to vindicate their rights and we must not foreclose that means.
JOHN CURTIN
remarks at American Bar Association annual meeting, Aug. 13, 1991
Lawyers rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic question: "Will it do good?" When challenged about the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, "Why not?"
LAWRENCE LESSIG
Free Culture
We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
A lawyer is an odd sort of fish, first rotten, then green, then ripe.
ROBERT CHRISTY
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases
[The Utopians] have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws.
SIR THOMAS MORE
Utopia
I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
Lawyers are in the business of advocacy, not judgment.
ALLAN C. HUTCHINSON
Is Killing People Right?
Lawyers are like unrequited lovers--you give them an inch, and they go for the whole nine yards; you take off one shoe, and they pull down your pants.
ANDRES RUEDA
The Clawback
Americans see lawyers as obstructionists, as defenders of murderers.... In reality, lawyers are the glue that holds society together. Without lawyers ... without law, you have anarchy.
BILL CUNNINGHAM
Cincinnati Magazine, Sep. 1992
If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
No group has a greater responsibility today in helping maintain our free institutions of society than the lawyer. In fact, being a man of the law, he is uniquely equipped through training, outlook and experience to be a leader of his fellow citizens. American history confirms his tremendous contribution--helping draw up the basic documentation of our freedom, serving as a leader in local, state and national government, participating in the affairs of community life. At this hour, America especially needs the leadership of the lawyer. The moral fabric of our Nation is badly torn. Disrespect for law and order is widespread. The very principles of free government are being scorned and perverted. Flouting the law has almost become a hobby for some individuals.
J. EDGAR HOOVER
Texas Bar Journal, Feb. 22, 1964
He who will always be his own lawyer will often have a fool for a client.
J. HUNTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'.
JOHN RAY
A Complete Collection of English Proverbs
As to the essentials of a good lawyer, I have some very definite convictions. He should have a keen sense of right and wrong and a firm belief in basic moral values. I would hate to trust the welfare or protection of the life or property of any of my clients to a lawyer who had no respect for moral values, or one who had a callous indifference as to what was basically right and wrong.
JOSEPH T. KARCHER
New Jersey Lawyer, Nov. 1986